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The Ultimate Arrogance: genetic engineering and the human future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Keith Buchanan
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The work of scientists has in the last half-century brought humanity face to face with two major menaces to its survival and created a situation without precedent in human history. This twofold threat has been posed by the development of nuclear fission for civilian or military purposes and the more recent development of biotechnology or genetic engineering. We live, all of us, all of Creation, in the ominous shadow of nuclear technology. We live also in what is potentially a no less chilling shadow—the darkening shadow of biotechnology, an industry which, according to the Times of India, is ‘the fastest growing industry in the world today’.

It is more than a decade since the distinguished Austro-American biochemist Erwin Chargaff commented that these two immense and fateful scientific discoveries, ‘the splitting of the atom (and) the recognition of the chemistry of heredity and its subsequent manipulation’, both involved the mistreatment of a nucleus—that of the atom and that of the cell. He added—and it was a comment whose prophetic vision was largely ignored at the time—‘In both cases do I have the feeling that science has transgressed a barrier that should have remained inviolate.’

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 69 , Issue 812 , January 1988 , pp. 35 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Praful Bidwai: ‘Biotechnology: The Second Colonisation of the Third World’, in The Times of India Sunday Review, April 19, 1987.

2 Chargaff, Erwin: Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature, New York, 1978, p. 183Google Scholar.

3 ibid.

4 ibid. p. 189.

5 For the curious story of just how Crick and Watson went about the discovery of the role of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) see ‘A Quick Climb up Mount Olympus’ in Voices in a Labyrinth by Chargaff, Erwin, New York, 1977, pp. 9–14Google Scholar.

6 Heraclitean fire p. 186.

7 Bidwai loc. cit.

8 Rifkin, Jeremy: ‘The horse is just a temporary situation’; interview by Julie Sheppard in London Food News, No. 6, Summer 1987, p. 7Google Scholar.

9 Chakravarthi Raghavan: ‘Towards a People‐oriented Biotechnology’, in International Foundation for Development Alternatives Dossier 60, Nyon, July—August 1987.

10 ibid. The comment was made by a Tanzanian diplomat and member of the board of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.

11 Rifkin, Jeremy: Declaration of a Heretic, London 1985, p. 52Google Scholar. The ethical aspects of such work are explored by Michael W. Fox in ‘Genetic Engineering’, in The Animals’ Agenda March 1987, pp. 9–15.

12 London Food News, loc cit.

13 From G. Wolstenholme, ed.: Man and His Future, 1963, cited by Chargaff in Voices…, pp. 48–9.

14 Rifkin: Declaration… p. 72.

15 For the small beginnings see the report on Prof. Robert Winston's work entitled ‘Genie in the bottle’ in the Guardian 13 June, 1987. As the American poet said: ‘The fog comes on little cat feet.’

16 Rifkin: Declaration… p. 57.

17 ‘“Aids created” claim renewed’, Guardian 27 Oct. 1986, commenting on the claim by a Harley Street consultant that ‘the Aids virus is a germ warfare agent created in an experiment which went disastrously wrong.’

18 SUNS (special united nations service, published by IFDA, Nyon) No. 1674, 17 March, 1987, p.3.

19 Rural Advancement Fund International, Brandon, Manitoba and Pittsboro, N.C., RAFI Bio‐Communique, Oct—Nov 1986, ‘Bovine Growth Hormone’. 5 giant transational companies are involved.

20 ibid.

21 The US Government's stockpile is more than 3 billion pounds of dried milk and cheese, while in 1986 the government launched a $1.8 billion programme which paid dairy farmers to slaughter their cows for export. RAFI Bio‐Communiqué, Oct—Nov 1986.

22 Pat Roy Mooney: ‘The Law of the Seed’Development Dialogue, 1983: 1–2 Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala.

23 ibid. p. 88.

24 Mooney quotes losses of ‘half to two‐thirds’ in the gene‐banks in Australia and the USA. ibid. p. 76.

25 ibid. p. 132.

26 Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation Introductory Notes for Symposium Participants 1987 p. 4.

27 ibid. p. 8. For the tissue culture production of vanilla and its implications for the economies of several African countries see RAFI Bio‐communiqué, January 1987.

28 Introductory Notes for Symposium Participants, p. 12.

29 Mumford, Lewis: The Pentagon of Power, London 1971, p. 128Google Scholar. The late Sir Martin Ryle, Astronomer Royal, was deeply concerned with the many misuses of science and technology. See his letter to the President of the Pontifical Academy of Science and the background to it: Martin Kyle's Letter, Menard Press, London, 1985, pp. 16–20Google Scholar. Particularly striking is his question: ‘Should fundamental Science (in some areas now, others will emerge later) be stopped?’.